John Clark/Dialectic Voyeur

Sunday, November 23, 2014

I read an NPR news story about the inclusion of Moses in the
state’s social studies standards for textbooks.
Here’s part of the article. My
letter to Texas Board of Education member Ken Mercer follows.

The standards are called the Texas Essential Knowledge and
Skills and were created in 2010. They state that high school students in U.S.
government are expected to "identify the individuals, whose principles of
laws and government institutions informed the American founding documents,
including those of Moses, William Blackstone, John Locke, and Charles de
Montesquieu."

The majority Republican, 15-member Texas Board of Education
defended the standards during meetings this week.

"Moses was not a Founding Father. However, I believe he
did influence our Founding Fathers," says Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio.

Mr. Mercer,

In reading about the adoption of social studies textbooks in
Texas, I came across the name of Moses as one who influenced our Founding
Fathers. Although it has been some time
since I studied the writings of these esteemed gentlemen, I can’t recall any
mention of Moses affecting their thinking.
I then came across your quote:

"Moses was not a Founding Father. However, I believe he
did influence our Founding Fathers," says Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio.

Do you mean to suggest that the Texas Board of Education
will include in its educational standards certain influences and individuals
based solely on a belief that those influences and individuals played a
significant role in the forming of our early history, including the
Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence?

All I can say is the rest of the country should begin
praying for the children of the Lone Star State.

Friday, November 21, 2014

The
U.S. House of Representatives has filed a suit challenging the unilateral
actions of the Obama administration in the implementation of the Affordable
Care Act (Obama Care). As the NY Times reported today (November 21, 2014):

“The suit accuses the Obama administration of
unlawfully postponing a requirement that larger employers offer health coverage
to their full-time employees or pay penalties. (Larger companies are defined as
those with 50 or more employees.)”

After too many times
to count of voting to repeal the entire Obama Care law, the House leadership
brings a lawsuit saying the President is not implementing the law as it is
written. These actions, contradictory on
their face, only make sense when the goal of obstruction of Obama’s efforts is
acknowledged as the sole raison d’etre of the ‘house of the people.’

Thankfully, although
a bit late, Obama is taking unilateral action on important issues of our
nation. The speech this week laying out his
steps to address the pressing human crisis of our failed immigration system is
another example. With majorities in both
houses beginning in January, although slim in the Senate, Republicans no doubt
will be placing boulders in the middle of the road of improvements for our
country. Already drags on investing in
our infrastructure and renewable energy created by the Republicans are hurting
this country, especially when action on these critical issues would create work
for thousands of Americans.

Although not
surprising, the result remains a tragedy.
Hopefully, Obama will act unilaterally when he can to at least try to
keep the U.S. within the rational trends of the 21st century.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

The Report of the
Cultural Life Task Force: A Missed
Opportunity

By John H. Clark

The Cultural Life Task Force (CLTF) organized by the Arts
and Science Council (ASC) a year ago to study the cultural sector and recommend
ways to financially sustain the organizations that produce art, exhibit science
and showcase history recently issued its recommendations. The study was needed and had the potential to
set Charlotte-Mecklenburg, and eventually the surrounding region, on a positive
course. That course would increase the
number of audiences and donors and connect them directly with the music, dance,
theater, art, science and history about which they could become passionate.

The unfortunate thrust of the Task Force recommendations is
to keep the Arts and Science Council at the center of power and influence in
our cultural sector. The people at the
ASC, its board and staff, mean well and truly care about the culture of our
region. It is no surprise, however,
those individuals in and close to the ASC are not going to recommend a
significantly diminished role for the organization. But they should have.

Here’s why. A
thriving cultural sector is one in which thousands of individuals and families
are engaged directly with art, science and history. Not only attending performances and exhibits
but being moved to give money to those producing groups to support their
activities. A key result is a sense of
investment and pride by those donors in the groups they support.

Workplace giving, which the ASC and the Task Force want to
retain, does not achieve the passionate connection direct philanthropy creates
between donor and cause. First of all,
donations from the employees go to the ASC.
Only very recently has some choice been introduced. Secondly, an
employee may prefer to give to an organization that does not receive funds
through the ASC, yet must give to the campaign. Thirdly, many employees in
workplace giving feel pressured to give which creates only resentment.
Workplace giving is efficient in collecting dollars, but it begs the question
of what are those dollars for?

Currently, those funds support the ASC: a third-party broker which produces no art,
exhibits no science and showcases no history.
The ASC sucks up millions of dollars from the community, determines
which organizations receive some of that money and consequently wields too much
power over the future development of those groups.

By giving major annual grants to the selected cultural
organizations that often made up 20-30% of their budgets, the ASC helped create
a dependency of these cultural organizations on the ASC. For example, the
Charlotte Symphony—one of the most vital organizations in our cultural life—was
receiving about $2 million from the ASC before the recession of 2008. The CSO
board and staff then had to be concerned with raising only 75% of its total
operating expenses.

The recession had a devastating impact on this ASC-centered
model. For example the ASC grant to the
Charlotte Symphony dropped from $2 million in 2008 to just over $800,000 last
year. Employees in the companies of the
annual ASC work-place campaign felt no connection to this third-party. Many donors who gave directly to the cultural
organizations did step forward, because they had the passion for the arts,
science and history. Today there is still a large gap between pre-recession and
post-recession support for our cultural organizations.

For the long-term, the ASC needs to move from center stage
and begin to phase out workplace giving as it helps the organizations become
truly independent and self-sustaining. Clearly, the current structure, which
has been in place for a half century, cannot turn around on a dime. A transition period of a decade should be
established to move to an approach in which the organizations which are
directly engaged in art, science and history are the key players. The ASC can play a catalyst role and some of
the recommendations in the Task Force report are most appropriate for that
purpose.

Efforts should be made to advocate for a cultural life in
which those individuals and groups which make art in our communities and
neighborhoods are connected to those individuals and families who experience
it, come to love it and willingly and even joyously support it.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Let’s Put our Hearts
into the Future of our Cultural Life

I urge the Cultural Life Task Force to let go of a
half-century old approach and get with the 21st century emphasis on
direct involvement in the excitement of the arts, science and history within
the Charlotte region—not only as audience members but also and most importantly
as donors.

Most of us make tax-deductible contributions to causes or
nonprofit organizations each year. For
example, you may give to the university you attended, to a food bank, the Red
Cross or the Charlotte Symphony. You
personally make the decision about where your gift will go, because you
personally believe in the value of the services of these groups. You believe strongly in what they do and when
you make your gift, you feel good about it.
It’s direct and it’s personal.

This is what true philanthropy is all about. It comes from our passion about a cause or
service. That kind of feeling is missing
with a united-fund approach (aka ‘work-place giving’) that has been operating
here for over fifty years. Gifts by
workers under this approach go to the Arts and Science Council which then
disperses those funds to the various arts/cultural groups according to certain
criteria. The original donor has no say
in how her funds are used. Recently,
there has been some choice included in the campaigns, but the system remains at
best an indirect way from the donor’s standpoint of supporting arts and
culture.

The recent recession demonstrated a weakness of this
system. The ASC, the ‘middle-man’ of
this approach, lost 65% of support from businesses and foundations since the
recession. If direct and personal
philanthropy had been the major approach since the late 1950s, the effect of
the downturn might not have been so severe.
More importantly, the various arts and cultural groups would not have
developed a certain level of dependency upon the ASC. Most of the larger organizations receive a
quarter to a third of their total budgets from their annual ASC grant. Their staffs get very used to seeing they
have to raise only 66% or 75% of their total expenses, because the ASC grant
will be there for them.

What should the Cultural Life Task Force do? What should we do? The Task Force will be in closed sessions
until it issues its recommendations in early 2014. Hopefully they will be
willing to hear your ideas.

I recommend that we begin to move to a direct and personal
philanthropic model to support our cultural life in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Work-place giving does not have to totally
disappear, but it should be significantly reduced. I would suggest a ten-year transition period
to the personal philanthropic model.
This would give the organizations time to ramp up their cultivation and
direct solicitation programs targeted to individuals who have a direct interest
in the organizations’ art, science and history missions. The ASC can be a catalyst to this change,
offering training assistance and other resources encouraging individual
involvement and giving.

Let’s connect our fellow citizens and their families
directly with the talented and devoted people who make art, explain history and
demonstrate science. Culture is not
about selling cars or houses. Culture is
all about an experience. You can’t buy
it, take it home and put it on the shelf.
Culture is all about touching our emotions, our heart. And personal philanthropy is all about giving
from the heart. Let’s make that happen
here.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

I had to laugh reading the comments of City Council members
who supported the subsidy for the Carowinds expansion. Carowinds’ owner
Cedar Fair Entertainment probably paid millions for the adjoining 61 acres two
years before the subsidy matter came up. What was their intention? To
establish housing for the homeless?

Where are all the ‘free market’ warriors who scream to get
government out of our lives? Council should not ask staff to consider revision
of this excessive freebie program, but instead vote to scrap it.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

I responded recently to an essay on Charlotte Viewpoint [ http://www.charlotteviewpoint.org/ ] by Suzanne Fetscher, head of the McColl Center for Visual Art. Here is her essay with my observations to follow:

I am a really slow learner. I have been working in the
cultural nonprofit sector for a long time. It is only now that I feel that I am
comfortable in philanthropy work. What took so long?

When I consider my experiences in fundraising over the last
twenty-three years, I recall how terrified I was when faced with the duty of
fundraising as a newly appointed Executive Director. I felt paralyzed by the
prospect and hid out in my office to avoid the task. I wanted to be successful
at it for the sake of my institution but felt so intimidated by the image of
asking very important wealthy individuals (who intimidated me already) for
their money.

So I focused on grants. It seemed much easier. I had the
same perception of many of my board members. There are foundation pots of money
“out there” for the asking; one just has to write a grant. “Can’t you write a
grant for that?” a well-meaning board member would suggest. They, too, didn’t
like fundraising and wanted to avoid it by suggesting another route to funding
a special project or need. It was a reflex response to any funding issue. “Just
write a grant.”

Working with our grant writer and researching on my own, I
quickly learned that being awarded grants requires a process of research,
cultivation, and relationship building similar to those when fundraising from
individuals. It can take years to identify potential funders, establish a
relationship with them, and write a request that they may or may not fund.
Crafting a compelling grant request takes time and artistry, and involves sound
business planning and program evaluating methods. It must demonstrate impact.
Writing a thoughtful, well-researched single grant may be a multi-year process.

I came to realize that the common denominator between asking
institutions for money and asking individuals for money is relationship. And
that takes time.

The best part of the grant-writing experience was meeting
with the program officers of the Knight Foundation, PEW Charitable Trusts, Lila
Wallace Fund, and Creative Capital. It started to give me confidence in my
ability to make a strong case for our institution’s mission, history, and
future plans. It also taught me the importance of building relationships over
years.

However, perhaps the most important lesson for me was the
importance of learning that fundraising isn’t about me (was I a good
fundraiser?) or my institution. It’s about the goals of the foundation or the
individual or corporate philanthropy department and learning if there is
goal-alignment between their institution and mine. It’s about making a good
match of core values, goals, and impact, Not about whether the funder is
supporting the “right” cause or whether my institution is that “good cause.”
This has helped me care more deeply about the conversations that I get to have
with donors and funders. I get to learn about their institution’s passions and
motivations and, if it’s an individual donor, what they would like their legacy
to be. I get to create a deep and meaningful relationship between them and my
institution. What a gift it is to me to act as the facilitator of that
relationship.

Recently, I was fortunate to participate in Charlotte’s
Leadership Gift School. Leadership Gift School is presented by a consortium of
funders: the Foundation for the Carolinas, Charlotte Mecklenburg Arts &
Science Council, Carolinas HealthCare, Blumenthal Foundation and others. The
brilliant program is designed and led by Chris McLeod, an independent
fundraising consultant in Charlotte, and Karla Williams, author and national
fundraising consultant. Through that remarkable program, I have come to love
philanthropy and see it as a unique and noble calling. I owe the consortium of
funders and Chris McLeod and Karla Williams my greatest thanks.

I am a slow learner. My life lessons and those lessons
learned from program officers at foundations taught me much about authentic
relationships built upon shared values and goals. Leadership Gift School taught
me that those lessons are instrumental in philanthropy and creating vibrant and
meaningful impact for individuals and community.

In her admirable self-effacing essay, Suzanne Fetscher
offers a positive and accurate portrayal of what philanthropy is all
about. Many of us working to sustain
organizations and missions would agree with her admission: “I have come to love philanthropy and see it
as a unique and noble calling.”

Ms. Fetscher’s essay indirectly illuminates the costs to
this community when it adopted 50 years ago a united fund model (UFM) to raise
money for the arts. In short, the model
takes a top-down, centralized approach through an annual campaign conducted
primarily through corporations, businesses and the professions. In fact, a major reason city leaders created
this type of model was to minimize the number of requests to the business
community for support. Charlotte organized its approach through the Arts and
Science Council (ASC).

The various arts and science organizations, which became
annual grant recipients with funds through the campaign, had over the years 25
to 33% of their budgets covered by this revenue source. This encouraged a degree of dependence by
these organizations on the ASC. For
example, an organization would garner about 30-35% of its budget from
ticket/admission sales, 20-30% from its annual fundraising efforts, and the
balance from project grants, advertising and other miscellaneous sources.

As a result of the UFM, the emphasis at these organizations
tended to be project/campaign oriented fundraising: brochures mailed to season ticket sales,
letters going out soliciting annual support donations. Donors tended to be viewed as ticket-buyers,
or annual donors not as individuals with a potential passion for the art form. In other words, there were very little
resources—time, energy, knowledge—placed upon cultivation.

In short, there was very little of what Ms. Fetscher
describes as exciting to her about philanthropy: “I get to create a deep and meaningful
relationship between them and my institution.”

Had Charlotte not adopted the UFM a half-century ago and instead had allowed an
open environment for arts, cultural and science organizations to develop and
nourish passionate donors, a number with deep pockets, our arts scene would be
a lot different. Our organizations would have experienced many decades to
seriously cultivate individuals who initially show an interest in their plays,
their concerts, their dance performances and their art collections.

At the beginning of the last decade, the Nashville Symphony
Orchestra embarked on an aggressive endowment campaign. Nashville has no UFM and is smaller than
Charlotte. Because it had to cultivate individuals over the years, the campaign
was very successful. The endowment was increased from $23M to $123M with 35
individuals giving $1M and one donor giving much more.

I am not saying that a city without a UFM approach will be
able to attract huge numbers of wealthy donors.
I am suggesting only that Charlotte tied its hands by keeping a UFM
approach in place for a half a century.
No one knows what would have happened with an environment friendlier to
philanthropy. I would bet, however, our
groups would be more effectively endowed than they are now and, consequently,
much better off today. And, maybe more importantly, there would be more
knowledge and appreciation for the arts generally.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Socialism.What does it mean? (2009)

What is socialism?This philosophy has received an unusual degree of attention
recently.Initially, it was used as a
one-dimensional attack via Joe the Plumber by the McCain forces at the end of
the presidential campaign.As a result,
it prompted several letters to the Citizen-Times and was the subject of a few
local opinion pieces.

In each exposition, the term never received a fair
description of what it means. When it is used, it becomes in our slogan-driven
public forum a meat ax to pound an opposing candidate or cause.Clearly, an attempt to define socialism in
this limited space runs a significant risk of oversimplifying. In taking that
risk, let me add that my purpose is not advocacy but clarification.

In a nutshell the major purpose of socialism is to provide
the opportunity for each individual in society to develop to his or her fullest
potential. Although capitalism may intend that indivudals will develop their
talents and capacities, socialism makes it the primary goal.

The first priority of capitalism, on the other hand, is
through industry and commerce to create a profit or surplus value through the
production and exchange of goods and services.Individuals do benefit and great wealth may be produced through its
enterprises. But many individuals do not gain and the cause is not solely
attributable to intelligence and motivation.A system that is designed to maximize profit for owners and investors
guarantees, regardless of motivation and hard work, that a significant number
of citizens will come out with less.

The continuing debate between conservative and liberal
capitalists is how much government is needed to lessen the pain of
profit-driven economics.The former
argue that “big government” gets in the way of the free-market; the latter
advocate for government to assist the many who are trampled by the ‘free
market.’

The discussion is never about what kind of society do we
really want.Capitalism offers an
indifferent market that produces by its nature a few haves and many have
nots.Socialism develops a society to
provide the opportunities for each of us to develop our talents to the
fullest.Socialism cannot produce the amount
of wealth that capitalism can, but it would not create the extreme artificial
inequalities that capitalism inherently spits out.

Democracy can operate just as well in a socialist society as
in a capitalitist one.In fact it would
be more democratic.The large number of
individuals and families in poverty are a blight on the quality of democracy in
a capitalistic culture.This would not
be the case under socialism.With free
education and healthcare, each individual would live in an environment that
encourages excellence. Consequently, one could argue, the ethics of an entreprenuriel
spirt and service to the community would go hand in hand to create a true
practice of community.

So the next time a politician derides his opponent as a
‘socialist,’ it may in truth mean higher praise than intended.